i felt wistful sending away the hallmark travel journal that msfirefly won in miss iggy's giveaway not too long ago, so i got a new travel journal from staples. it's actually a serendipitous purchase, as it was the only journal in the clearance bin and it only cost me $3. i was attracted to the cover art by susy pilgrim waters. this is the back portion, the front part features "london" art. i really felt this journal was for me because i've been to both new york and london.

i decided to put it to use on our recent weekend getaway to ottawa, canada. i was inspired by the points enumerated here regarding keeping a travel journal as compared to travel blogging. i do keep a separate personal journal apart from my blog (because there are things best kept to oneself); this one is hopefully going to travel places with me and will be exclusively devoted to my travels.

here are a couple of pages from my journal:

i kept the hash brown wrapper from the mcdonald's we had breakfast at in ottawa. i love how their golden arches logo has the red maple leaf in the middle!

i brought tape with me so i can easily stick things onto the pages as i write. i plucked a wild rose from the parliament as a souvenir. my pages should improve in its visual appeal over time. i made the pages quickly so as not to lose momentum on writing everything worth mentioning in my journal. plus, i didn't have the luxury of time since i was traveling with my family whose feet were getting tired from all the walking and whose patience was thinning out because i took too many photos of the same view with different cameras. i did add some afterthoughts later on, as you might notice with the gel pen writings in contrast to the regular ballpoint pen ones.

where to next, susy pilgrim waters? yes, that's going to be my travel journal's name from now on. susy, for short.

With Mc Donald's wrapper in it, it looks like a little scrapbooking. But still it's very different and it's a good idea. A travel journal was gifted to me in 2007. But I thought it's so pretty that I don't want to use it. Heehee.